Microsoft just unveiled a couple of new cloud based policy management solutions for Office 365. The Office cloud policy service and security policy advisor aim to help Office users define policies and get intelligent recommendations related to policy creation. Here’s more information about each of these new features.
Cloud policy service
The Office cloud policy service, now generally available and supported for all Office 365 ProPlus customers, lets administrators define policies and assign them to users using Azure Active Directory security groups. Once you’ve defined these policies, the service automatically enforces them as users sign in and out.
For administrators, you can start using the new feature by signing into the Office client management portal and then creating policy configurations. You don’t need to be domain joined or MDM enrolled, and you can use it with corporate devices or BYOD setups.
In addition to building policy configurations that you want to enforce, you can also use the service to target groups of users by assigning a specific policy configuration to a whole AAD security group. You can also receive health reporting for each of your configurations so you can stay updated with how your policies are being enforced.
Security policy advisor
Security policy advisor is a new feature available in public preview. It’s an intelligent policy recommendation engine that’s part of the Office cloud policy service. The new service is meant to help enterprises improve the security of their Office 365 ProPlus clients by letting IT admins manage the security of their Office applications.
With this option, you can get tailored recommendations for security policies, along with rich data insights for security and productivity so you can make more informed decisions for your organizations. It also includes one-click policy deployment and monitoring and reporting features so you can keep track of the impact of your policies once they’ve been deployed.
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